A son of the late Ammar Badie prays during his father’s funeral in al-Hamed mosque in Cairo’s Katameya district on Sunday, Aug. 18, 2013. Badie, the son of Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Mohammed Badie, was killed by Egyptian security forces Friday during clashes in Cairo’s Ramses Square. Egypt’s military leader vowed Sunday that the army will not allow further violence after the deaths of hundreds in days of political unrest, while still calling for the political inclusion of Islamist supporters of the country’s ousted president. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

CAIRO — Lawmakers in Washington on Sunday condemned the recent crackdown by government forces in Egypt but remained conflicted on whether to punish the military by trimming or cutting off aid, even as supporters of the ousted president, Mohammed Morsi, held more protests.

“I would cut off aid but engage in intense diplomacy in Egypt and in the region to try to say, ‘Look, we will restore aid when you stop the bloodshed in the street and set up a path toward democracy that you were on before,’ ” said Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.

“In my mind, there’s no way to say that this was not a coup,” Ellison said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It is. We should say so. And then we should follow our own law, which says we can’t sit — we cannot fund the coup leaders.”

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., cautioned, however, that reducing aid would curtail U.S. influence over Egypt’s interim government. “We certainly shouldn’t cut off all aid,” King said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“The fact is there’s no good guys there,” he said. “But of the two, I think there is more opportunity to protect American interests if we work with the military and continue our relationship with the military.”

Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on “This Week” that the U.S. needed to “recalibrate” its aid to make U.S. displeasure abundantly clear but not endanger security needs like priority passage through the Suez Canal.

The varied opinions offered by lawmakers illustrated the difficulty facing President Barack Obama, who has condemned the violence, canceled joint military exercises and delayed the delivery of four F-16 fighter jets. But he faces hard choices: risk a partnership that has been the bedrock of Middle East peace for 35 years or stand by while longtime allies try to hold on to power by mowing down opponents.

On one side, the Israelis, Saudis and other Arab allies have lobbied Obama to go easy on the Egyptian generals in the interest of thwarting what they see as the larger and more insidious Islamist threat.

The discussions in Washington occurred as some supporters of Morsi took to the streets in Cairo on Sunday to protest his ouster. The afternoon passed relatively quietly as Egypt’s rulers met to discuss the bloody confrontations with Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood that have left at least 1,000 people dead.

The government said Sunday that 79 people died in Saturday’s violence.

In comments to military and police officers Sunday, Gen. Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, who ousted Morsi and appointed the new government, pledged to crack down on anyone resorting to violence, Reuters reported, but apparently he struck a conciliatory note by saying, “There is room for everyone in Egypt.”

In a statement, the Muslim Brotherhood derided el-Sissi’s comments and disputed claims that its members had used violence in their demonstrations. State and private news media have increasingly taken to describing members of the Brotherhood as terrorists.

The military’s overthrow of Morsi was intended to undermine democracy, the Brotherhood’s statement said.

“The Egyptian people who discovered the trick now realize the size of the conspiracy against their freedom, dignity and sovereignty,” the statement said. “As a result, the people are holding an uprising all over the republic to stand against injustice.”

On Sunday, Western governments continued to wrestle with the implications of the violence for continued cooperation with the interim government. The European Union warned that it would “urgently review” its relations with Egypt during emergency talks Monday.

In a statement, the EU said that while all should exercise restraint, the onus for stopping the violence rested with the interim government.

“The calls for democracy and fundamental freedoms from the Egyptian population cannot be disregarded, much less washed away in blood,” the statement said.

In Washington, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who recently traveled to Egypt with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in a failed effort to head off a crackdown, joined his colleague in urging a suspension of aid.

“Somebody needs to look el-Sissi in the eye and say: ‘You’re going to destroy Egypt. You’re going to doom your country to a beggar state. You’re going to create an insurgency for generations to come. Turn around, general, before it’s too late,’ ” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Several Democrats echoed Corker’s sense that overarching U.S. security interests — the need to maintain overflight rights, priority passage through the Suez and a crucial partnership in dealing with Israel — made any aid cutoff deeply problematic.

Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said flatly that “a cutoff of aid at this moment would be the wrong thing to do.”

Facing a choice between a military government that “hopefully will transition as quickly as possible to civilian government, or the Muslim Brotherhood, I don’t think the Muslim Brotherhood is a choice,” Engel said on ABC.

One Democratic senator, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, offered a middle road on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Reed, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that Congress could pass legislation to suspend aid but include a waiver to allow the president to continue it if he deemed it necessary “to engage or attempt to engage the Egyptian government.”

In Egypt on Sunday, some efforts to restore normalcy could be found. Some shops reopened, as did the banks and the stock market, but shares fell sharply.

“As long as we have bloodshed on the streets, it takes away any reason for foreign and regional investors to buy in Egypt,” Amer Khan, the director at Shuaa Asset Management in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, told Reuters.

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